Honda has announced an impressive rider line-up for a three-team assault on the third round of the 2012 FIM Endurance World Championship – the 35th ‘Coca-Cola Zero’ Suzuka 8 hours Endurance Road Race which will be held at Suzuka Circuit (Mie, Japan) from 26-29 July.

FCC TSR Honda, which is gunning for its second consecutive win, will reunite the pairing of Kosuke Akiyoshi, the 2011 Japan Superbike 1000 champion, with Jonathan Rea who is currently ranked third in the FIM Superbike World Championship.

The same partnership competed strongly for the FCC TSR Honda team in the 2010 running of the Suzuka 8 hours, climbing to the third step of the podium following two stop-go penalties and an early crash, which had left them in last place.

The MuSASHi RT HARC-PRO team will also be aiming for the Suzuka podium with Takumi Takahashi, who has been on the podium four years in a row, teaming up with Ryuichi Kiyonari and Hiroshi Aoyama.

Kiyonari, the three-time British Superbike champion and winner of the Suzuka 8 hours for last two years, is now competing in the Asia Road Racing Championship. Meanwhile, Hiroshi Aoyama, now team-mate to Jonathan Rea in Honda’s official World Superbike championship team, will make a return to Suzuka 8 hours after an absence of nine years.

Azlan Shah Kamaruzaman, winner of the 2011 Suzuka 4 hours race, will make a return to Suzuka and step up to the 8 hours with Asia Dream Cup Professional trainer, Makoto Tamada, and Chojun Kameya as ‘Honda Team Asia’.

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